Things Are Better Today

We all moved to the living room after finishing our meal. My family had gathered to celebrate my grandfather's 84th birthday. As we sat around the fireplace, he asked me how my surgical rotations were going. I answered that they were going well, and he replied, with a smile, that he was proud of my chosen profession because he had always had great respect for surgeons. I knew the story that was about to follow. My grandfather grew up in the 1930s and 1940s in a small town called Hirson, in northern France, near the Belgian border. His father worked as a border guard and his mother as a councilor at the local town hall. The Second World War ravaged the town, but personal events also contributed to changing my grandfather's life forever. My grandfather took a deep breath and began telling the story he had already recounted so many times. “You know I lost my mother when I was sixteen?” my grandfather asked. “It was the summer of 1947, and Hirson was just starting to recover from the war,” he continued. “My father had gone to work, and I was helping my mother prepare some vegetables in the kitchen. It was midday, and the sun was shining through the windows. I will always remember my mother telling me how much she loved me and how she was so happy the war was over. As we worked side by side at the counter, she suddenly shrieked, dropped the utensils she was using and collapsed on the floor. She covered her abdomen with her hands as she moaned and cried. As I got down on my knees to help her, she passed out. Her skin turned white, clammy, and cold. I panicked. I shook her inanimate body repeatedly but she wouldn't wake up.” “I ran to the next room and immediately called the mayor's office. As a town councilor, my mother had developed a close relationship with the town mayor, Dr. Fresnel, who was also the town's general surgeon and the director of the local hospital. I got ahold of Dr. Fresnel and told him what had happened. He told me he would come over immediately.” “Minutes later, Dr. Fresnel's car pulled up in front of our house. I opened the front door, and he rushed into the kitchen. He called my mother's name and tried to wake her with no success. He leaned over her to check whether she was still breathing and then quickly pressed on her abdomen. He turned to me and said my mother needed to be brought to the hospital immediately. He then picked her up in his arms, carried her into his car, and rapidly drove off.” My grandfather paused at this point in his story. His eyes started to water and he sighed heavily. The grief from the events that happened 68 years ago still seemed so profound. “By the time my father and I arrived at the hospital, Dr. Fresnel had already finished operating on my mother,” my grandfather resumed. “He met us in the hallway near my mother's room and delivered grim news to my father. ‘Your wife suffered significant internal bleeding,’ he said. ‘We found an ectopic pregnancy. She survived the operation, but I am not sure her heart will sustain the stress.’ In those days, there were no blood transfusions available in hospitals in small towns like ours, and my mother had lost a lot of blood.” “My father and I remained at my mother's bedside throughout the night,” my grandfather continued. “Her skin was pale, and she never really woke up. By the morning, I knew things had taken a turn for the worse. Dr. Fresnel came to meet us again. He led us out of the room and informed us my mother had passed.” We all watched my grandfather wipe away a tear. “Despite my mother's passing,” he went on, “I will always be thankful for Dr. Fresnel's efforts. I know he did his best at the time. If only medicine had been more advanced, she might have survived. We should all be thankful that things are better today.” As I sat next to my grandfather, I reflected on his last sentence. Medicine has indeed progressed significantly over the last half-century. I felt it was now my generation's responsibility to do everything possible to ensure it continued to do so. Conflict of Interest: None. Author Contributions: Michael Paci is the sole author of the manuscript. Sponsor's Role: There were no sponsors or funding received for this manuscript.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.